The Jack Stone Fever

With the school year now sleeping on the couch, kids at the countryside now spend the hay day having fun playing some of our traditional games. We, admittedly, have grown up doing the same thing. We went gaga with patintero, chinese garter, luksong tinik, and tumbang preso. But not to be forgotten in our all time favorite -the Jack's Stone.


Jacks (sometimes called jackstones, jackrocks, fivestones, onesies, knucklebones, or snobs) is a playground game for children.

The game originated hundreds of years ago, when the only playthings boys and girls had were materials they found near their homes. They collected small stones and animal bones and learned to use them in a game. They tossed them into the air in a way similar to today's version of the game. An older version of the game used five stone cubes made of clay, wood, ivory, bone, plastic, or other substances. The game is usually played with two people. The game originated in Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt.

Knuckle-Bones were in favor for use in this game two thousand years ago and are still used. White, water-washed pebbles; crockery stilts, which are little three-legged bits of earthenware upon which china and earthenware are placed when firing; iron stilts, made in imitation of the crockery ones; "lucky stones," which are bones from the inside of the head of the fresh-water fish called sheepsheads; and marbles, are all used in this country for jacks.

Traditionally, jacks are metal objects bearing six tips at right angles to one another, four of which are usually rounded, with two opposite tips more pointed. This ensures the jack is relatively easy to pick up. Also required is a small rubber ball, used as a sort of timing device: the jacks are manipulated in the time it takes the ball to bounce up in the air and return to the height of the hand that catches it.

Jack is the name given to the stone which is thrown up while the different feats are performed.

The Game

The game opens with one player taking the five stones in his hand. Holding the hand, palm up, he tosses them into the air. Before the stones have time to descend the player turns his hand over and catches as many as he can on the back of the hand.

These, he again tosses up and before they descend he picks up those jacks that he failed to catch on the back of his hand. Quickly turning the hand he catches the descending jacks, and now holds all five in his fist.

Whenever a player fails the next in turn takes the jacks. After successfully catching the jacks on the back of the hand, or picking up all that fell off, the player does the second feat, called "Ones".

First rolling the stones from his hand on to the ground, he throws his Jack up, and before it falls, picks up a stone. Again tossing up Jack he picks up another, continuing until all are successfully picked up from the ground. The next play is called

Again rolling the stones on the earth and tossing Jack aloft, the player picks up two stones at a time, and, sending Jack up again he picks up the remaining two. This same process is repeated in. but in this play one is picked up first and three at the next toss, or three first and one afterward.

All four stones must be picked up while Jack is in the air.

Winning

The winning player is the one to pick up the largest number of jacks. If playing with fifteen, that goal is rarely, if ever, achieved. If ten jacks are used, the person who gets to the highest game wins. Game 1 is usually single bounce (onesies through tensies); game 2 is chosen by whoever "graduates" to game 2 first, and so on. Some game variations are "double bounces," "pigs in the pen," "over the fence," "eggs in the basket" (or "cherries in the basket,") "flying Dutchman," "around the world," etc. Some games, such as "Jack be nimble," are short games which are not played in the onesies to tensies format.

Variations


A variation of this game known as "gobs" was played in Cork, Ireland in the 1950s using five pebbles (often quartz) found on the beach.
Another variation played in Australia uses five knucklebones from a lamb shank or colored plastic objects that resemble lamb knucklebones. The player tosses the five jacks in the air catching as many as possible on the back of the hand then tosses the jacks on the back of the hand, turns the hand over and catches as many as possible in the palm. The player then puts down all but one jack which he or she has caught and tosses the last jack in the air and attempts to pick up each of the remaining jacks that are lying on the ground before catching the tossed jack in the same hand. In the first round the jacks are picked up one at a time, in the second two at a time etc. Variations include swapping hands, playing with one's eyes closed, clapping quickly before picking up the jack, "catching flies" where the jack that is tossed in air is caught overhand after the one on the ground has been picked up and playing with a second set of jacks placed between the fingers - first one, then two etc.

Another variation played by Israeli school-age boys is known as "kugelach." Instead of jacks and a rubber ball, five dice-sized metal cubes are used. The game cube is tossed in the air rather than bounced. This is also known in Hebrew as "Chamesh Avanim" or "five rocks".
In the North East of England the game with five cubes (wooden rather than metal) is called 'chucks'.
A very similar variation called "beş taş", or "five rocks" again, is played by children in Turkey with five pebbles, where one is tossed into the air and the player tries to pick up those on the ground one by one, two by two, etc., before catching the pebble in the air.

In modern day Korea a form of jacks called gonggi is played by children. The difference being that in this similar game there are five weighted plastic 'stones' called gonggi and the game is played without a rubber ball. The goal of the game is to throw one gonggi into the air, snatch up another on the ground, and catch the first gonggi before it hits the floor. The game progresses in this fashion similar to jacks until all gonggi have been picked up. Then the gonggi are placed in the palm of the hand and flipped onto the back of the hand. Depending on how many land on your hand you add a certain amount of years.

In traditional Filipino culture, Jack Stone is considered a girls' game. Boys would often opt to play swordsman, character hero, push around fast cars, or tote guns against the other kids. But with the passing of time, with girls getting imbued with boys' games, boys have also started adopting the ladies' game. Thus, Jack Stone has also become one of their cups of tea.

Notable World Championship

In the 2007 World Jacks Championships, Boston Bruins player and notable 'Jacker' Patrice Bergeron won against Micheal Stipe (lead singer of the band R.E.M.) by picking up 37 jacks in once bounce.

Batang Pangao on Jack Stone

In Brgy. Pangao, left with not much to play with, boys just couldn't resist playing Jack Stone. Well, this is just a past time. Boys changing game preferences doesn't mean they're blooming into something or someone. Anyway, the game is still with stone and somehow still represents the masculinity in them.

With summer around, it's amazing how things can turn upside down. But one thing is for sure. These stuffs will always be part of growing..part of kids' life.